


Everything Is Rosy

by MelyndaR



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 12:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3249086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/pseuds/MelyndaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is not as rosy as a pregnant Emily pretends it is when Spencer comes to visit her in London. But can she be convinced that her life could be great again if she'd only return to D.C. with Spencer?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the end of season seven.

Spencer Reid took a deep breath as he looked out the window of the plane, knowing that the familiar movements of the landing of an aircraft weren't what were causing his flipping stomach. Neither was the fact that he was an ocean away from home, coming to a smooth landing in London, England. No, his nerves and stomach upset were caused by the thought of the woman that he knew he was going to see once he got off of this plane.

He and Emily Prentiss had still remained friends after she had left the Bureau three months ago. Good friends, actually. Back when she had returned to Quantico from the dead, or from Paris, or from wherever you wanted to think of her as having been, they had even gone out on a couple of random, spontaneous coffee dates. And once, just once, that date had ended up with them back at her place, doing… you know…  _it_.

And that "it" was why Spencer had known that he had to come see her. She had left the Bureau a little over three months after that night, and since then, she had become increasingly strange in her interactions with the team, especially him. Something was going on, and he had a feeling that if he didn't confront her about it face to face – or at least go check up on his suspicions – she wouldn't give him an honest answer. And if he was right, he absolutely needed a completely honest answer to the question that must be asked.

Spencer took a deep breath and stepped off of the airplane, his eyes immediately drawn to Emily Prentiss in the crowd. And she looked to be about six months pregnant.

"Hi!" When he reached her, Emily threw her arms around him and gave him a hug like nothing in the world had changed. "How is everybody? You? The team?"

It took him a second, but by the time that the two friends pulled apart, Spencer had put a smile in place, ready to play along until she was willing to talk about it.

"We've all been doing fine. We miss you, though." Spencer tried not to frown as he asked, "And how about you? How have you been?"

"Oh… just peachy. Absolutely rosy so far. London is such a great city."

Spencer saw Emily bite her tongue as she realized that she was standing on the edge of starting to babble. That was a dead give-away to the fact that she was nervous, not that she wasn't already putting that fact on display in a million other small ways.

Silence stretched awkwardly between them as they walked out to Emily's car, so different from the way things were between them back in D.C. At least in a way, it was different. Right now, both of them was obviously uncertain as to where they stood with the other, and that wasn't so different from D.C. Only in D.C., they constantly had the rest of the team around them to act as a buffer towards any awkwardness that might have sprang up between them.

Once she had came back to the BAU, they had worked together to try and get their relationship back onto the friendly level that it had previously been on, but they had tried too hard and ended up overcorrecting – at least that's what Spencer told himself they had been doing – when they had gone on those dates, and… done it. While he knew himself to still be in love with the commitment-shy brunette, he was pretty sure that she didn't feel the same way towards him. Heck, he didn't even know if she had ever really felt that way about him. While it pained him to consider it, the thought had lingered in the back of his mind that maybe he had let him take her out; maybe she had sex with him, just to try and regain his trust. After all, wasn't that exactly what she had done with Ian Doyle?

Yes, finding out where they stood with one another was definitely number two on his priority slash to-do list for this trip.

Spencer threw his bag into the backseat of Emily's car and then climbed into the passenger seat.

The silence between them grew thick between them before Spencer decided to heck with waiting for her to talk about it. Knowing her, she never would bring it up, but would choose to ignore the subject of her pregnancy as a whole while he was here.

"So… it looks like there's been a little pink plus sign in your recent past," Spencer stated, albeit somewhat hesitantly.

He needed to ask the question, but that didn't mean that he wasn't afraid to know the answer.

Emily nodded, keeping her eyes locked straight ahead on the road. "Yep." She forced a tense smile onto her lips. "Like I said, everything has been absolutely rosy so far. Even the sign on my EPT."

"Well, that's great, Em!" he said, hoping he sounded more convincingly carefree about the situation then he felt.

"I'm going to tell the team soon, I promise."

Spencer nodded once and they lapsed back into silence. Emily reached over and cranked up the volume on the radio.

For the rest of that day, Spencer reverted back to plan A: don't bring her pregnancy up. But this was only a weekend trip; he had to be back at the Bureau on Monday, which meant leaving London Sunday night. He didn't know if he could make himself leave if by that time he didn't have the answers to his two all-important questions.

But how the heck was he supposed to ask her those questions? Was he supposed to just walk up to her and demand to know whether or not he was the father of her child? What her feelings really were towards him? Maybe he was just supposed to bring it all up over breakfast?

What he actually asked Saturday morning over breakfast was a far more generic question.

"What do you have planned for the day?"

Emily shrugged. "I've got paint, and I was going to paint the guest bedroom – start turning it into a nursery for the baby – but I don't want you to sleep in there with paint fumes floating around."

"Should you be in there if there are paint fumes floating around?" Spencer asked with raised eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes, insisting, "I'll be fine."

"Well, in that case, I'll be fine with sleeping on the couch tonight if you want some help with the painting."

"Are you sure? Don't you want to do some sightseeing or something?"

"Nah; I'm sure. I came here to see you, not Big Ben or the Tower of London."

Emily smiled at that. "Okay, then. Today we paint!"

And so they found themselves clearing the furniture out of the guest bedroom and laying down tarps before opening cans of paint that Spencer found to be a rose-petal pink. His stomach flipped inside of him, and he vaguely thought to wonder if Emily would guess why.

"Wow," he stared down at the paint in the can. "Everything  _will_  be rosy by the time that we get done in here, huh?"

Emily laughed at his expression. "Yeah."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the idea for this story was spurned by the sudden image in my brain of Prentiss painting a room in her new apartment pink... and this is what became of it.

Once they had started putting the paint on the wall, Spencer tried to keep up that same jovial tone as he asked, "So I guess it's going to be a girl?"

"That's what I've been told," Emily said with a nod, staring at the wall in front of her.

He wanted to go over and shake her; demand that she look at him, demand that she give him some answers, but he didn't. After a few minutes of the same almost-strained silence, Emily disappeared and then reappeared with a radio. She set it down in the middle of the floor and turned it on before going back to work on the painting. Spencer felt a sudden wave of resentment for that radio, how it so effectively cut off the need for conversation, a conversation that he was beginning to suspect Emily knew that they needed to have.

What was a guy to do? He'd go along with her – at least for now.

* * *

Emily was beginning to love the radio for sucking the awkwardness out of the air between her and Spencer. Or at least taking most of it away. She began to sing along, hoping to force the rest of it out of the room. The desired affect was completely achieved when Spencer smiled and began to sing as well. Loud and off-key, but happy. That was all that she wanted.

That was all that she had ever wanted for Spencer – that he be happy and keep that innocence that he had about him. He had been the biggest reason – if not the only reason – that she had taken this job in London. The truth was she just didn't think that he was ready for this. Maybe that wasn't her call to make, and maybe she was wrong, but she had made the call, and she didn't think she was remiss in doing so. Spencer deserved better than an unplanned pregnancy and whatever broken form of love that she would be able to give him. She told herself that it didn't matter that she loved him. He deserved better than what she could give him, and that had to be all that there was to it.

These thoughts had for once been alleviated from her mind, drowned out by the pink walls and bright music, and Emily found herself laughing when she looked at Spencer. The poor man had a large stripe of pink paint down his nose. How on earth had that happened?

"What?" Spencer asked her with a smile.

"You're nose," she laughed.

Spencer rubbed the sleeve of his shirt across his nose, shrugging when it came away pink. "Oh, well; that was bound to happen to one of us sooner or later."

"Yeah, don't worry; it looks kind of cute on you, Reid."

She smiled, but then her smile turned back down to a frown as the familiar and unwelcome thoughts washed over her once again. She turned back to the wall and returned to attacking it with a paint brush.

"Emily," he whispered seriously, turning to face her.

"Hm?" she responded, pretending that she didn't notice his tone.

A pause wherein he struggled to figure out which of the many words that he wanted say should actually come out of his mouth, and then he asked simply, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she answered quickly, but he needed answers, and they both knew it.

"Okay," he murmured, his tone letting her know that he was allowing her to get away with that lie.

A beat-long pause and then she sighed, dropping her paint-roller back into the tin of paint. "It's just…"

He, too, abandoned his task and came over, placing both his hands on her shoulders and looking down on her. Her gaze skittered towards the tarp-covered floor as he asked, "Emily?"

She swallowed and forced herself to look into his brown eyes. "It's just that… you're this little girl's father, Spencer."

Every muscle in Spencer's body relaxed and he smiled gently, saying the two most surprising words in the world. "I know."

"You  _what_?"

Spencer took a step back, scrambling to explain. "At least I thought I might be. You started acting strangely, and then you left, and then you got even weirder, and I got to thinking, and… I just figured it out one day. I decided then that I had to come see you, get things figured out between us. And here I am."

Emily gaped at him. For as smart as she knew Spencer Reid to be, she had always thought that he wouldn't think of this scenario – of what had actually happened.

"Well then," Emily crossed her arms over her chest, feeling irrationally frustrated with him as she said, "Tell me, Spencer Reid, what else do you know about this situation?"

Spencer cocked his head to the side, looking at her a little sadly. "I know that it doesn't have to be this way," he murmured, stepping back up to her and cupping her shoulders once again. "I know that the team misses you like crazy; that we all do… that I do. I know that it's time for you to stop running, Emily. I know that if and when you're ready to come back to the BAU, there will always be a place for you on the team; we'd make sure of that. I know that there will always be a place for you in my apartment. I know that I love you, Emily, and whenever you're ready, I will always be there waiting for you." He swallowed, looking deep into her eyes. "That's what I know."

Emily closed her eyes, feeling the first tear slide down her cheek. Spencer carefully gathered her close, letting her cry softly into his shirt.

He lowered his face to her hair, whispering, "And I know that I want to be a father to our baby."

This caused another sob to rack her body as she realized just how much she had misjudged him. He was ready for this; he did want this, maybe even more than she wanted it. He wanted them to be a family, but she… she just wasn't sure if she could go back to the team, to him, yet. So she just clung to Spencer's paint-spattered shirt and cried.


	3. Chapter 3

It was a twenty minute ride to the airport that Sunday night, but it felt much longer than that for both of them. Spencer hadn't said anything the rest of the weekend about her returning to the BAU, but she knew that he desperately wanted her to.

Emily just… she couldn't quite convince herself that going back was the right thing to do. Yes, she missed the team as much as they missed her. Yes, she missed Spencer more than words could even begin to describe. Yes, she was lonely here in London, and no, she didn't like her job here as much as she had enjoyed profiling with the team. But this job provided her with the stability that she would need to raise her baby. But was that reason enough to deprive her little girl of a closer relationship with the girl's own father?

Emily wasn't sure.

She followed Spencer into the airport, not sure how to say goodbye to him since the baby's paternity was now out in the open between them. Since she really wasn't sure how she felt about him. Yes, they were friends, but – despite the fact that she was already carrying the man's child - she couldn't decide whether or not she was ready for them to really be something more than that.

"'Bye," she told him, waving a little.

"Why 'goodbye'?" he asked. "I'll be back when the baby's born."

She nodded. Of course he would. He would fight to make this work regardless of what it took on his part.

"I'll see you later, then," she corrected, going into the hug that he actually offered her.

"See ya'," he said, his eyes sad behind the smile that he wore.

Emily smiled the same half smile at him one more time before she turned on her heel and went back to her car, hurrying away so that Spencer didn't see the tears starting to glass over her eyes.

Back at her apartment, she wandered into the baby's unfinished nursery and found herself sliding down the pink wall to sit on the floor. She sat there for a few minutes, thinking the whole situation over. After only one weekend – not even three whole days -of having him here, her apartment felt empty without Spencer's presence. But why? Sure, things between them had changed again once she had admitted that he was becoming a father. The atmosphere had become charged with the things that had gone on between them in the past, the uncertainty of what might remain before them, and, at least for her part, the bittersweet memories of what they had almost, but not quite, been after her return to the Bureau. But in the end he had left whether she stayed here or went back with him completely up to her, and she had chosen to stay.

She looked around the bare nursery – it was really no less homey then the rest of her apartment – and the thought crossed her mind  _Why?_ Why had she chosen to stay here, alone and lonely in London, rather than go back to D.C., to the job, to the team, and above all, to the man that she knew now she loved.

When she looked at it all honestly, she could say that her only real reason was fear. She was afraid of what the team and even what the rest of the world might say about it all - after all, she was a good dozen years older than Spencer – but she knew full well that fear was no good reason to stay here alone and raise a child practically by herself in London. She couldn't deprive her daughter of the girl's father, and herself of what she knew would be a good relationship with a good man.

She had to go back to D.C.

Emily scrambled to her feet, already checking her watch and piecing together a plan. She had a half an hour before Spencer's plane took off. She didn't want to wait for the next plane out after that, but she didn't know if it was even possible to get a ticket on this short of notice.

 _But then again, maybe it is_ , she thought, grabbing some of her clothes and throwing them into a suitcase.

Emily grabbed her cell phone and dialed the familiar number.

"Well, if it isn't the loveliest lady in all of London!" the cheerful voice on the other end of the phone chirped.

"Hey, PG," Emily smiled. "I need you to work your magic and not ask questions. Can you do that?"

"Whatever you need, sugarplum," Garcia answered with only a moment's hesitation.

"Great, because I need you to get me a seat on Reid's return plane."

"Consider it done… Oh, look, the seat right beside our Boy Genius is open now! And  _now_ it is reserved for one Emily Prentiss."

Emily laughed. "Garcia, I love you!"

"I love you too, Peaches, and I expect a serious girl's night out as soon as is humanly possible while you're here to explain whatever shenanigans I know you're up to as payment for my services."

"'Consider it done,'" Emily promised, torn between a smile and a grimace at the thought. "I'm sorry, Pen, but I'm really in a time crunch right now; do you mind if I call you back later?"

"Fine by me. Garcia out!"

Emily zipped up her suitcase, overnight bag, and purse and headed towards the door that she had entered not fifteen minutes before. She had a plane to catch.

* * *

Spencer buried his head in his book as the last of the passengers boarded the plane around him. The last person on board appeared to be assigned a seat next to him.

She shoved her carry-on into the overhead compartment and sat down, breathing heavily as if she had just run a marathon – or, as was more likely, barely made her flight – while Spencer shrunk down in his seat and tried to ignore the sudden invasion of his personal space. This was why he hated taking public flights. Oh well, with the situation surrounding Emily and their baby, he figured he had better get used to it.

Something about the woman's very breathing, though, sounded familiar to Spencer, and he glanced at her around the side of his book.

"Hey," she whispered as the book fell into his lap. She took his hand, asking with a smile, "What do you say we go home?"

"Where's home for you?" he asked somewhat guardedly.

If this wasn't what he thought it was, then he didn't want to get his hopes up.

"With you and our baby in D.C., living out our nice 'rosy' future… if that's alright with you?"

"That's perfect with me," Spencer answered.

Their two hearts were soaring higher than the plane that they were in when they leaned in and kissed each other, reveling in the fact that they had finally, finally figured out just what they both needed.

A family in each other.

 


End file.
